How to recover files?

System

And once you've finished it open a Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Mega.NZ or Dropbox account and upload a copy of the files to there so you actually for once have a backup that could have saved you needing to do this or at least only meant transferring a few recently updated files.

esuhl

Si_Clist wrote: »

Sorry, it's very uninteresting indeed. Push-button start switch packed up, maker said "can't be replaced on account of you can't get at it, best way forward is to buy a new case and swop all the bits over" and I thought "gubber that for a lark".

So I spent a happy hour with my Dremel cutting away part of the top panel in order to get at the switch, managed to extract the broken moulding that you pushed on, only to find that the actual switch was indeed stuffed. As the man said, replacement not feasible even if one was available on account of it was mounted straight onto a double-sided PCB, and no way of rigging up a substitute, so PC has gone to the dump (less HD), I'm happy just using the laptop nowadays, and I have more deskraum

Cut off the broken switch. You can "hotwire" the PC to turn it on by touching the bare wires together.

Or just replace the switch.

Strider590

Si_Clist wrote: »

Sorry, it's very uninteresting indeed. Push-button start switch packed up, maker said "can't be replaced on account of you can't get at it, best way forward is to buy a new case and swop all the bits over" and I thought "gubber that for a lark".

So I spent a happy hour with my Dremel cutting away part of the top panel in order to get at the switch, managed to extract the broken moulding that you pushed on, only to find that the actual switch underneath that was indeed stuffed. As the man said, replacement not feasible even if one was available on account of it was mounted straight onto a double-sided PCB, and no way of rigging up a substitute, so PC has gone to the dump (less HD), I'm happy just using the laptop nowadays, and I have more deskraum

To be fair you did half a job, you could have cut into the power switch wire and soldered in a new switch.

HOWEVER, your HDD data recovery is as simple as you think as long as you know the basics of accessing external drives (which a surprising number of people do not).

Unless you used special drive locations, your important files should all be in:
C:\Users\<yourusername>\
So copy that entire folder and pick out what you need later on.Just don't copy the contents into your new user account folder (anywhere else is fine), because various program settings are contained in there and you could screw up your laptop. It does mean you can selectively recover settings for some non-windows programs though, if your careful.

This wouldn't work for me, but that's because I hate being told where I should store my files

GunJack

Strider590 wrote: »

This wouldn't work for me, but that's because I hate being told where I should store my files

Amen to that